February 14, 2012

Joint State-Federal Mortgage Servicing Settlement FAQ

If you are a homeowner, start with this FAQ page
http://www.nationalmortgagesettlement.com/faq
and be sure to poke around the links on the page to find out more about the settlement, esp these pages:

http://www.nationalmortgagesettlement.com/about

http://www.nationalmortgagesettlement.com/

Important details ( to me, at least) are:

BANKS ARE STILL ACCOUNTABLE FOR OTHER CLAIMS NOT COVERED BY THIS SETTLEMENT

This agreement holds the banks accountable for their wrongdoing on robo-signing and mortgage servicing. This settlement does not seek to hold them responsible for all their wrongs over the years and the agreement and its release preserve legal options for others to pursue. Specifically, this settlement does not:

Release any criminal liability or grant any criminal immunity.
Release any private claims by individuals or any class action claims.
Release claims related to the securitization of mortgage backed securities that were at the heart of the financial crisis.
Release claims against Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems or MERSCORP.
Release any claims by a state that chooses not to sign the settlement.
End state attorneys general investigations of Wall Street related to financial fraud or the financial crisis.

The agreement settles only some aspects of the banks conduct related to the financial crisis (foreclosure practices, loan servicing, and origination of loans) in return for the second largest state attorneys general recovery in history and direct relief to distressed borrowers while they can still use it.

February 14, 2012

What’s Inside the $25 Billion Mortgage Settlement: An Early Look

If you click on each underlined heading of the article, a PDF opens.
I would be very interested in how y'all see this.
(Thanks to Ms. Smiler for the heads up on this)

"Federal and state officials haven’t made public the $25 billion settlement agreement that they reached with five large banks. As the Journal noted, the exact wording was still being finalized even as officials announced the deal on Thursday morning.

Officials said the final agreement would be made public once it’s filed in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., but that might not happen for a few weeks. Until then, here are some of the recent drafts of the settlement. The settlement includes several different components, some of which officials could release before the agreement is submitted to court.

The draft documents obtained by the Journal show the many moving pieces that were the product of more than one year of discussions. As indicated, the documents are draft copies that were issued on Jan. 19, just as state attorneys general were briefed on the deal. It’s not clear how much the terms have changed since these drafts were written:"

http://blogs.wsj.com/developments/2012/02/13/whats-inside-the-25-billion-mortgage-settlement-an-early-look/

February 10, 2012

Dear Admins: forcing us to use Paypal is not a good idea.

Original, here:
I know I am not the only person here who will not link their bank for withdrawals.
Wayyyy too many problems have happened that way.

Pls bring back the credit card option for those of us who would like to pay for DU.

For those who are reading this, north of the border has posted that DU will only accept a bank deducted payment via PayPal.
See here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/124042217#post101

Anyone else here have a problem with this ?

February 8, 2012

Robosigner Exec. has been indicted!!!!!!!

Feb. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Docx LLC, a unit of Lender Processing Services Inc., was charged in Missouri with forgery and making a false declaration related to mortgage documents it processed.

A grand jury in Columbia, Missouri, handed down the 136- count indictment against Docx and founder Lorraine Brown alleging that a person whose name appears on 68 notarized deeds of release didn’t actually sign the paperwork, Chris Koster, the state’s attorney general, said in a statement yesterday.

“When you sign your name to a legal document, it matters,” Koster said. “Mass-producing fraudulent signatures on millions of real estate documents across America constitutes forgery.”

Lender Processing, based in Jacksonville, Florida, says about half of all U.S. mortgages by dollar volume are serviced using its loan-servicing platform. The company will fight the charges, said Michelle Kersch, a Lender Processing spokeswoman.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-02-07/lender-processing-unit-docx-indicted-in-missouri-for-forgery.html

136 counts, most of them felonies!

LPS created Docx to create, out of whole cloth, forged titles, notes, mortgages, for foreclosures, and was one of the first robo-signing outfits to be under suspicion.

February 6, 2012

NY AG suing MERS!!!!

If I were a praying person, I would pray for this guy every day.

From the NY State AG Official Page:

Schneiderman: MERS And Servicers Engaged In Deceptive and Fraudulent Practices That Harmed Homeowners And Undermined Judicial Foreclosure Process

NEW YORK – Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman today filed a lawsuit against several of the nation’s largest banks charging that the creation and use of a private national mortgage electronic registry system known as MERS has resulted in a wide range of deceptive and fraudulent foreclosure filings in New York state and federal courts, harming homeowners and undermining the integrity of the judicial foreclosure process. The lawsuit asserts that employees and agents of Bank of America, J.P. Morgan Chase, and Wells Fargo, acting as "MERS certifying officers," have repeatedly submitted court documents containing false and misleading information that made it appear that the foreclosing party had the authority to bring a case when in fact it may not have. The lawsuit names JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., Bank of America, N.A., Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., as well as Virginia-based MERSCORP, Inc. and its subsidiary, Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc.

The lawsuit further asserts that the MERS System has effectively eliminated homeowners' and the public's ability to track property transfers through the traditional public records system. Instead, this information is now stored only in a private database – which is plagued with inaccuracies and errors – over which MERS and its financial institution members exercise sole control. Additional defendants include BAC Home Loans Servicing, LP, Chase Home Finance LLC, EMC Mortgage Corporation, and Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, Inc.

“The banks created the MERS system as an end-run around the property recording system, to facilitate the rapid securitization and sale of mortgages. Once the mortgages went sour, these same banks brought foreclosure proceedings en masse based on deceptive and fraudulent court submissions, seeking to take homes away from people with little regard for basic legal requirements or the rule of law,” said Attorney General Schneiderman. “Our action demonstrates that there is one set of rules for all – no matter how big or powerful the institution may be – and that those rules will be enforced vigorously. Only through real accountability for the illegal and deceptive conduct in the foreclosure crisis will there be justice for New York’s homeowners.”

The financial industry created MERS in 1995 to allow financial institutions to evade local county recording fees, avoid the hassle and paperwork of publicly recording mortgage transfers, and facilitate the rapid sale and securitization of mortgages. MERS operates as a membership organization, and most large companies that participate in the mortgage industry – by originating loans, buying or investing in loans, or servicing loans – are members, including JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac. Over 70 million loans nationally have been registered in MERS System, including about 30 million currently active loans.

Through their membership in MERS, these companies avoided publicly recording the purchase and sale of mortgages by designating MERS Inc. – a shell company with no economic interest in any mortgage loan – as the "nominal" mortgagee of the loan in the public records. Instead, MERS members were supposed to log mortgage transfers in the MERS private electronic registry. The basic theory behind MERS is that, because MERS Inc. serves as a "nominee" (or agent) for most major lenders, it remains the "mortgagee" in the public records regardless of how often the loan is sold or transferred among MERS members. Thus, although MERSCORP has only about 70 employees, MERS Inc. serves as the mortgagee of record for tens of millions of loans registered in the MERS System.

MERS has granted over 20,000 “certifying officers” the authority to act on its behalf, including the authority to assign mortgages, to execute paperwork necessary to foreclose, and to submit filings on behalf of MERS in bankruptcy proceedings. These certifying officers are not MERS employees, but instead are employed by MERS members, including JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo.

MERS' conduct, as well as the servicers’ use of the MERS System, has resulted in the filing of improper New York foreclosure proceedings, undermined the integrity of the judicial process, created confusion and uncertainty concerning property ownership interests, and potentially clouded titles on properties throughout the State of New York. In fact, several New York judges have questioned the standing of the foreclosing party in cases involving MERS loans and the validity of mortgage assignments executed by MERS certifying officers.


http://www.ag.ny.gov/media_center/2012/feb/feb03a_12.html

February 5, 2012

Worn Pipes Shut California Reactors ( the pipes are relatively NEW!)

The two reactors at the San Onofre nuclear-power station near San Clemente, Calif., will remain shut down this weekend while federal safety officials investigate why critical—and relatively new—equipment is showing signs of premature wear.
The problem surfaced Jan. 31, when one of the units sprang a leak in a pipe called a steam tube, releasing small amounts of radioactive steam and tripping radiation alarms. Operators shut down the reactor four hours later.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204662204577201343461828720.html

get this:
San Onofre was built in the 1980s. Its owners, Edison International and Sempra Energy, spent more than $800 million replacing nearly 40,000 steam tubes and four giant steam generators in 2009 and 2010, buying the equipment from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. The tubes are made of a metal called Inconel alloy 690, a state-of-the-art material intended to address a prior problem with cracking in tubes made of a different alloy, experts said.

Steam-tube leaks aren't unusual in older plants, experts said, "but I think such rapid degradation is clearly unusual," said Edwin Lyman, nuclear expert for the Union of Concerned Scientists. He added that it suggests manufacturing defects or operational issues.

February 5, 2012

Move over, Greece, here comes Hungary.

Does this sound familiar???

BUDAPEST (Reuters) - Hungary is seeking an international credit line of 15 to 20 billion ($20 to $26.3 billion) euros, the secretary of state heading the prime minister's office, Mihaly Varga, was quoted on Saturday as saying.

Hungary is seeking backup from the International Monetary Fund and the European Union to reassure investors it has financing even if it gets cut off from debt markets later this year.

The country's currency, the forint, sank to a record low against the euro a month ago, and its government bond yields rose above 11 percent on concerns that amid the euro zone crisis it may not be able to finance central Europe's highest debt burden compared to its economic output.
http://news.yahoo.com/hungary-seeks-15-20-billion-euro-imf-eu-121926484.html

I honestly had no idea what the currency was called..interesting name.

February 4, 2012

FINALLY! 2 bank Execs plead guilty to fraud.

No, not CEOs, but it is a start. Maybe they will rat out the higher ups?

Mired in legal trouble, two former Credit Suisse executives plead guilty to charges of inflating prices of subprime mortgage-backed securities in the midst of the housing crisis.

David Higgs and Salmaan Siddiqui each agreed Wednesday to one count of conspiracy to falsify books and records and commit wire fraud. Higgs and Siddiqui formerly served as a managing director and vice president, respectively, at Credit Suisse.

Higgs and Siddiqui face a maximum five years in prison and a fine the greater of $250,000 or twice the gross gain or loss from the alleged offense. The two are cooperating with the investigation.

The U.S. Attorney for Manhattan Preet Bharara and the FBI also charged Kareem Serageldin, Credit Suisse's former global head of structured credit trading.
http://www.housingwire.com/article/ex-credit-suisse-bond-players-plead-guilty-mbs-fraud

February 2, 2012

Illinois AG continues fight against banks, files suit against Title company citing mortgage fraud!

Why is this important?
Because the company.. "

NTC specializes in creating, processing and recording mortgage assignments, which are often used for a lender to foreclose on a borrower. "

Attorney General Alleges Faulty Practices in Foreclosing on
Homeowners in Crisis

Chicago — Attorney General Lisa Madigan today filed a lawsuit against Nationwide Title Clearing for filing faulty documents with Illinois county recorders. Nationwide Title Cleaning Inc. (NTC) is a Florida-based company that prepares documents for mortgage servicers to use against borrowers who are in default, foreclosure or bankruptcy.

“The practices that NTC used were a key contributor to the mortgage crisis by undermining the integrity and accuracy of the mortgage servicing and foreclosure process,” Attorney General Madigan said.

NTC provides a range of mortgage loan services to eight of the top 10 lenders and mortgage servicers in the country
NTC specializes in creating, processing and recording mortgage assignments, which are often used for a lender to foreclose on a borrower.
The lawsuit, filed in Cook County Circuit Court, alleges numerous violations of the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Practices Act and the Uniform Deceptive Trade Practices Act. Madigan is asking the court to require NTC to review and correct all documents it unlawfully created and recorded in Illinois, and pay back all revenues, profits and gains achieved in whole or in part due to unlawful practices. The suit also asks the court to impose civil penalties against the company.
http://illinoisattorneygeneral.gov/pressroom/2012_02/20120202.html

Also, note this:

She also sued Standard and Poor's, and sued Citywide, in other cases, and now has an active case against Morgan Stanley!

January 28, 2012

There are more people in US prisons now than were in Stalin's gulags.

"Six million people are under correctional supervision in the U.S.—more than were in Stalin’s gulags. "

The Caging of America
Why do we lock up so many people?
by Adam Gopnik
The New Yorker

Excerpt:
Texas alone has sentenced more than four hundred teen-agers to life imprisonment,

Excerpt:In truth, there are more black men in the grip of the criminal-justice system—in prison, on probation, or on parole—than were in slavery then. Over all, there are now more people under “correctional supervision” in America—more than six million—than were in the Gulag Archipelago under Stalin at its height.

Facts:
The accelerating rate of incarceration over the past few decades is just as startling as the number of people jailed:
in 1980, there were about two hundred and twenty people incarcerated for every hundred thousand Americans;
by 2010, the number had more than tripled, to seven hundred and thirty-one.
No other country even approaches that.
In the past two decades, the money that states spend on prisons has risen at six times the rate of spending on higher education.

Very good read, recommended.

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2012/01/30/120130crat_atlarge_gopnik